"Right," I agreed, starting back up the hill. "A great big puffy girl who shrieks at the sight of mice and snakes. I'd probably shriek at the site of hot guys if I could make noise around them at all."

Kelley stumbled and said a word I didn't think her mom would like hearing, but she kept following. "Okay, tell me where the kudzu fits in."

"Did you read my yearbook last year?" I reached the top of the hill, and stared up into the tallest oak on the planet. Jesse's favorite tree. Of course, for my little brother, favorite tree means tree mostly likely to result in serious injury when fallen out of.

"Hel-lo, we have the same yearbook."

"Did you read what people wrote in mine?"

"Yeah, I guess; nice stuff -- right?"

I walked around the tree looking for the best climbing spot. "Very nice," I said. "In fact, 'nice' was the word used most often." How did Jesse get up into this thing?

"Nice is good." Kelley grabbed my arm so I would look at her. "Besides, what does that have to do with Goliath tree here?"

"Xena is not nice," I said. "Lara Croft is not nice. Nice is one step away from invisible. I want to be daring, wild -- dangerous - and I want it to happen this year."

Miss Snark is not nice either but she likes this a lot and would read on with pleasure.

Thank you, Miss Snark...dang, the brain-os (they aren't legitimate typos...just rank stupidity) crept in when I cut the opening a tad so I could get 300 words without stopping in the middle of a thought. I deserved a vicious snarking for that, so thank you for your graciousness.

.."don't talk to me about Moonpies; you'll make me cry. I live in New England now -- I can't even get the things carted up to me as contraband." The M.E.A. has infested every dockside dive from Charleston Harbor to Chesapeake Bay with undercover marcs. MoonPie smuggling has become a treacherous business. On my last attempt at running the blockade I was captured--my wooden leg was reduced too sawdust in an attempt to make me disclose the secret location of my golden marshmallow treasure. I stood my ground; I was a 45 degree angle of defiance--until the parrot squawked me out to the Feds. Jan, ya got the goods, I hope Miss Snarks encouragement gets you to the next chapter. And I hope she'll accept this box of contraband cakes [and nifty ornamental stuffed parrot] as a promise that I'll never shanghai her blog again.--john--

Y'all are freaks.The only REAL treat worth smuggling are Mallomars. You can't even buy em in NYC in the summer cause they melt on the walk home.Come fall, anyone providing Mallomars and a stuffed parrot will get Miss Snark's seat on the balcony overlooking Central Snark.

Jan--Moonpies or not--listen to me. You capture in a few lines of dialogue what others only grasp at in setup and description and back story. Folks think dialogue is easy, or secondary, or whatever. I know you struggled through that, reworked it, said it out loud. You make it sound like the stand-up comedian who makes it work to capture the audience yet never shows all the sweat behind it. That's writing, m'friend. Enjoy your Moonpie.

I've never had a Mallomar -- are they the things that are some kind of cookie with a marshmallow on top and all covered in chocolate? I think I've seen them in stores but I was too much in mourning for Moonpies to consider a new love.

And thanks to everyone who said such nice things about my dialogue. I'll start my writing all puffed up today.